Gas Station Martin Bormann - 31 Years Depois

1986: Emerging photographer Ursula Böckler accompanies the German artist Martin Kippenberger on the second part of his „Magical Misery Tour“ throughout Brazil. They travel from Salvador to Maceio, Recife, Brasilia and finally to Manaus. One of the most influencing art works from this tour is a gas station in Salvador de Bahia. Martin Kippenberger bought and transformed it into the art work „Tankstelle Martin Bormann“ (gas station Martin Bormann). Martin Bormann was a Nazi commander who mysteriously disappeared after WWII. Then he was suspected to be in Latin America..
Not only Martin Bormanns whereabouts were mysterious, but also if Kippenberger really bought a gas station, if the gas station existed and where it was situated. In 2017, 31 years later, and almost 20 years after Martin Kippenbergers death, Ursula Böckler and her partner Georg Graw returned to Salvador with a research grant by the Berlin senate, traveling on the tracks of the „Magical Misery Tour“.
During the research in Salvador de Bahia they were able to relocate the “Tankstelle Martin Bormann”. The photographs show the original site – still a gas station, but now a super modern one - in color and b/w. The gas station attendants are fascinated by Ursula Böcklers interest and by the 31 year old photos she is showing to them: A travel in time to a premodern brazilian gas station that became the source of an iconic work of art.